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Think Progress Editor Faiz Shakir anticipated a ''gap'' in what the mainstream media would cover in the conservative realm, ''and that was going to produce some ripe information for us to understand what the opposition was up to.''
John Shinkle

"No one in town is keeping better tabs and following the money" behind conservative groups, says Jeremy Funk, the communications director for Americans United for Change. And no one, he says, is doing more than Think Progress to capture "conservative politicians entangling themselves in hypocrisy and double-speak or making embarrassing and outrageous comments.”

When a Think Progress blogger asked Armey in September about FreedomWorks's funding and its connections to the Tea Party Patriots, Armey referred to the blogger as a "juvenile delinquent."

O'Reilly has lit into the ThinkProgress bloggers as "insects" and dismissed the blog as a place where "anybody who disagrees with Barack Obama in the public eye gets smeared and slimed.”

And conservatives note that while Think Progress rails daily against what it sees as the evils of Fox News, the network is hardly wounded, routinely thumping its rivals in the ratings wars.

The Weekly Standard’s Michael Goldfarb says that Think Progress's focus on conservative pundits shows that its impact, if anything, is waning.

“They’re a shameless bunch of lying, distorting, propagandists, which I respect, and I don’t know what MSNBC would do without them,” he says. “But I think the high watermark for Think Progress is long past.”

Shakir disagrees. He says that last month, the blog attracted more than 4 million unique visitors, an increase since Inauguration – but still well shy of the 6 million-plus that checked in amidst the election last October.

Either way, it’s been a steady upward climb since launching in January 2005.

FreedomWorks spokesman Adam Brandon says that Think Progress would be much more effective if it dedicated its focus to arguing policy as opposed to attacking conservative personalities. (The blog does have a section called "Wonk Room," which does just that - albeit with far less attention.)

He says that Armey's decision to step down from DLA Piper in August – a move Think Progress regards as a feather in its cap – did not ratify the blog’s claims against the former Congressman. Instead, Brandon says, Armey did it because “Piper was getting so attacked for things it was innocent of.”

In contradicting the larger astrotufing charges Think Progress has leveled against FreedomWorks, Brandon says that 55 percent of his organization’s $7 million budget comes from individuals. And he notes that the Center for American Progress has its own share of wealthy donors.

At the end of the day, however, Brandon says he actually appreciates the attention that Think Progress has drawn to FreedomWorks.

“In a weird way it raises our profile because the people who don’t like us don’t like us even more,” he says. “So Rachel Maddow reads the blog and Rachel Maddow goes on a jihad against us every night. That helps us.”

Shakir says that his blog is sensitive to the balance of pushing back against conservative opposition without incidentally aggrandizing it in the debate. He notes that, while combating questions about Obama's birth certificate over the summer, Think Progress did its best to avoid highlighting Orly Taitz, the not-exactly-publicty-averse California attorney who has filed numerous lawsuits claiming the president is not a natural-born U.S. citizen.

Shakir says he'd be "lying" if he claimed he "didn't think about traffic," and that the focus on right-wing media personalities helps bring readers in for more substantive conversations about, say, health care reform.

In fact, he says, Rush Limbaugh’s "I hope he fails" line on Obama early this year set the blog’s Obama-era direction in motion. Think Progress jumped on the comment, thereafter leading the left in arguing that Limbaugh had spoken those words as the de facto head of the Republican Party and the conservative movement.

Now, Think Progress’ attention has shifted to another conservative media personality -- which is why every day at 5 p.m., in the bloggers’ pod of CAP’s H Street offices, the TVs tend to come off mute in unison just as Glenn Beck's Fox News show comes on the air.

"We know what our audience wants to read," Shakir says. "And that helps guide what we put on our blog. So we have a little bit of Glenn Beck, a little bit of Bill O’Reilly, because we know that generates enthusiasm and interest from our readers.”

Hate to break it to you Progressive/Socialists, but what is "fertilizing grassroots conservative anger". is nothing more than they have finally recognized just who America's enemies really are. And it isn't some rag headed jihadist all the way over the Atlantic. No siree, they are right here in our very blue cities and states. Going to be an interesting time when the wheels of civility really do come off. The Left is so focused on the current leadership of the GOP as an extension of their visceral hate for G.W. Bush that they think those baffoons are the one's standing in their way of turning this Costitutional Republic into a mere image of the former Soviet Union. You're looking at the wrong people nitwits. It is mainstreet America that is going to stop you in your tracks, not some Democratic Lite politicians who have an "R" behind their name. Fools!

HOWS THAT HOPE AND CHANGE WORKING FOR YOU LIBS OUT THERE? IT SURE IS HURTING THE REST OF US. IF YOU THINK THIS ARTICLE IS SOMEHOW EXPOSING SOMETHING AS EVIL AS VAN JONES OR ACORN OR THE REST OF THE FIASCO THAT IS THE OBAMA GOVERNMENT,YOUR NUTZO.

He was a favorite of Rudy Giuliani and was nominated to head the Dept. of Homeland Security. That didn't work out because Kerik is just another right-wing scumbag. The wingers complain about Janet Napolitano but their own leaders choose much worse people.

Atrios points out a post by Yglesias about the liars on the Right and I can't help adding this frank admission from a wingnut insider:

"We come with a strong point of view and people like point of view journalism. While all these hand-wringing Freedom forum types talk about objectivity, the conservative media likes to rap the liberal media on the knuckles for not being objective. We've created this cottage industry in which it pays to be un-objective. It pays to be subjective as much as possible. It's a great way to have your cake and eat it too. Criticize other people for not being objective. Be as subjective as you want. It's a great little racket. I'm glad we found it actually." Matt Labash, 32, is a senior writer with The Weekly Standard, Interview with Matt Labash, The Weekly Standard -- May 2003